Can you get retroactive approval?

Hello,

I applaud you for having the foresight to look into compliance violations prior to close.

The villages sales peddlers will not help you. Their only metric is to sell houses fast. It would be against their process to request owners to disclose known or potential violations.

There may be good CDD sups that could help you. However not in CDD7. Jerry will promise to help you in private, but will burn you at the hearing. I believe Klinko has a violation with his flag pole, yet has the audacity to judge against others who have not created violations, but inherited from previous owners. Colman and Judi often have their trash at the curb days before pick-up (repeat offenders), and have close neighbors that have suspect violations. I believe Coleman’s neighbor has structure infringing onto golf course easement. Judi’s neighbor on Ambrosia has trees and bushes about 7 feet from the road. They were the most adamant to impose fines on me for the beautiful twin palm sylvester and the majestic Bismark that the previous owner installed. It cost me a lot to get them taken out, and the sups felt that they still needed to collect some more than 50% of the imposed fine to pad their spending. Make no mistake, they work for Blocker, not the homeowners that they are supposed to represent.

My suggestion to you is to contact Community Stds. Phone: 352-751-3912.
You need to file a complaint on the home that you are interested to purchase. They are only complaint driven, and cannot look into compliance issues without a logged complaint.
Identify anything that you may suspect (exterior house color, driveway design, roof material, roof color, type of rocks used in landscape, position of landscape, trees, bushes, stack walls, curbing), They will investigate and you can get the findings. If everything is good then you will have documentation that the homesite is free of violations. Even if the landscape is the most aesthetically appealing on the block, but has violations, the existing homeowner must tear it down, before they can sell.

haha haha haha
yeah that was delusional

Do a compliance check on the property to make sure it’s in compliance before you purchase it
Or have your real estate agent, then put it in writing that they’ve checked, which I’m sure they will not unless they have checked

they should have gotten a larger garage, or just park in the street.

Nice place to visit
 

This CDD stuff is a pain. I'll let the owner worry about it and rent occasionally.
I hate that "Kiss the ring lifestyle." when it comes to doing home improvements. Fortunately I have great neighbors that take good care of thier property. All three of them! LOL
ARC want compliance, then yes, they should do inspections before any sale. Just like they do Cert of Occupancy inspection in some parts of the country. Yes, it would take a huge staff given the amount of property that changes hands there,
Great place to visit but I'm not ready to say I would want to live there.

Most states are "Buyer Beware" or "As Is".
When we bought our home in 2021 we were required to sign documents stating we had received a copy of the deed restrictions. At closing we had to do it again. They are not that complicated, and are very easy to read, and as someone has already posted available online.
In real estate you can write any contingency you want into the contract. It's up to the seller to agree to that to make it binding. Of course another offer can come in that is non-contingent. 2 to 3 years ago when the housing market was red hot there were multiple offers on every home. I'm sure a lot of buyers had concerns about deed restrictions but felt they had to accept the risk just to get the house. Now they're paying the piper.

Another poster opines on being able "to face your accuser". The other villages publication puts out Clickbait articles daily on FB about this. I for one think this is a distraction as it makes no difference as to whether you know the person who filed the complaint. Your home is compliant with the deed restriction or it isn't... It's a simple yes or no question. :ho:

The results of the compliance check may be that there are no active complaints against the property. That is all well and good but that doesn't mean the property is compliant, just that no one has filed a complaint.

When we bought and sold our home in Hillsborough County the title companies we closed with required a statement which cost me $500 from the CDD and HOA that our home was in compliance and clear of money owed! Do they not do this here?

Nope

The owners didn't find out 'the hard way' at all, after review it was decided the driveway was A OK. (Source local newspaper)

This is not a TV enigma. This is every home in America. Nearly every home everywhere would fail a full compliance test. For instance: I did a few years of Real Estate back in Illinois ( Cook County, often referred to as Crook County). The town of Cicero abutting Chicago was considered by many as even more corrupt than Chicago.

Every home sold in Cicero had to pass a compliance test before a sales stamp approval. No home could pass, period. The inspector would write up the found violations, then the home owner would correct the issues, then the inspector would write up some more violations and home owner would correct; and on and on until homeowner coughed up $900 to pay for “pre-certification”.

Some of the violations were: #6 electrical screw not used in light socket instead of #8; Drain gutter downspout attached in two spots to house instead of three; water softener 4 inches away from wall instead of 6. No I’m not making this up.

The point I’m making is that violations can always be found if you look hard enough. An inspection to cover everything would cost at least a couple thousand. Don’t open a can of worms. If you think you see some obvious violation, yes address that; otherwise just relax most of us don’t have that many years left, shy spend then worrying?

You correctly state that the 6th Amendment gives you the right to face your accuser in a criminal case. Nothing in the spirit of the Amendment gives you the same right in a civil proceeding, possibly because the stakes are so much lower. In a deed case, there is no need to confront the reporting person. The issue is whether a deed restriction has been violated. Motive, malice, financial gain don’t matter. Either there’s a violation or there isn’t. It’s shocking to me that so many people (generally well educated, middle class or higher) believe that the contracts they sign aren’t worth the paper they’re printed on, and try to shift the blame for their noncompliance to others who have the right to expect the compliance that protects the community as a whole.

Which paper was that? The only thing I can find in the online paper which shall not be named is this from 11/3:

went to the ARC seeking retroactive approval, but were denied

Just to let you know that the builder and city inspectors can screw up. I purchased a new under construction home in a different state, I was measuring the lot for future landscaping plans and I found that the entire house was mislocated on the lot by about 4 feet closer to the road and was in violation with the HOA standards.

I ended up talking to the city engineer and negotiating with the builder to get an exemption / approval from the HOA.

And it took the builder two additional attempts to get the survey correct.!

FL real estate contracts have a Seller Disclosure addendum (for title company closings at least and reputable sales). On the Disclosure Seller signs off that there are no deed restriction issues AND that they made proper application for any changes or improvements on the property. If T V is imposing fines then I would seek legal opinion on breach of contract with the seller. I would also ask about the selective enforcement in T V.

(Line 3h on FL Realtor Seller Disclosure Form)

And yet, here you are making comments. You already live here in your mind.

Truth!
 

That is nothing, we should post some pictures from our neighborhood. 3 cars and a truck MINIMUM, never seen them ever put clubs on a cart and appear to be going to play, but they always have a minimum of 3 carts on the drive along with their constant addition of more vehicles. Perhaps but a few of the cars, or carts in the garage ? No possible way, their home's garage has never been less than packed solidly to the garage door, once up there is not enough space to actually walk into the garage. Huge trucks with one or more trailers come and go constantly, day or night. LONG trailers are often unhitched from the truck or trucks, hitch is put on blocks on the street, and sometimes they even put a cone behind the long trailers, and there they sit, in the street, for days and days, often blocking a neighbor's drive partially. Neighborhood watch constantly driving past all this, never snapping a picture though the number of complaints from the neighbors must be overwhelming by now. Finally one neighbor did some investigation, turns out the owner is a very important employee of the Villages. No hope of changing this situation.When they first moved in, the moving company boxes stayed in the garage for months and their three vehicles and all their golf carts sat out. At least 6 months later, they finally got all their furniture unpacked and the garage was empty for several days, but then the trucks began rolling in, unloading all kinds of furniture, filling the garage completely to the door again. It truly is busier and has longer hours than any furniture store in the area... LOL !

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Apparently Real Estate Licencees, not just 'Realtors, but all (Sales and Brokers) are obligated to disclose to a buyer, not just 'Known Adverse Conditions' but also anything which would have been discovered with 'due diligence".
At least one legal opinion says that gives a 'damaged' buyer, grounds for suing the Real Estate Professionals involved (Salesperson and their broker) upon discovery.
This is based on the same concept as their legal obligation to disclose conditions like Radon, Lead Based Paint, Existing Code Enforcement action and many others., .
So we just need one 'injured party' to sue their Sales-person/broker and, maybe they will all avoid the future possibility of selling 'damaged goods!

The Villages
 

The Villages represent the sales of non compliance homes because they don’t place much care into their work or products. Just like Altavia, Asianthree and others reference, it’s about too being short on staff etc. That’s why there is a lack of professionalism which contributes to their poor customer treatment.

Whether obvious mismanagement is due to time or poor staffing is irrelevant. Those that bought noncompliance homes represented by Villages sales staff still need to pay to ameliorate the issues. Fines and expenses still exist whether you can attribute it to the non professionalism, or uneducated potential buyers.